What's the Best Aerial Mount?

[Palanan]

Let’s say you have access to the resources and territories of a far-flung empire, and you’re charged with building an effective aerial division, responsible with providing top cover for ground formations as well as carrying out aerial patrols, airborne surveys, special messenger duty, etc.

You have the resources to capture, train and breed almost any flying creature you like, with the exception of dragons and closely related creatures. So, what creature would you choose to serve as the backbone of your aerial command? What would be the best flying mount to carry out these functions?

[Deeds]

Mechanically? Idk. But I can think of some flavorful ones.

Imagine an army of elves on praying mantises, eh?

[GrayDeath]

Probably Balors or Piet Fiends. :P


More serious: If just about everything is in the open, I`d just aim for the fastest, most Weight carrying thing I can find that still has SOME kind of improved Senses and Ranged Attack (sadly my Monster Fu is not good enough to tell you what that would be).

If Ressources were less massive I`d probably go for the CLassics: Gryphons or Pegasi.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Griffons have a great chassis, and can be advanced to Huge.

[DEMON]

Some options, mostly from SRD:



Mount
Speed
Maneuverability
Carrying Capacity
AC


Dire Hawk (Large)
80
average
266/533/800
20


Dragonne
30
poor
348/699/1050
18


Drakkensteed
60
poor
600/1200/1800
15


Giant Eagle
80
average
300/600/900
15


Giant Owl
70
average
300/600/900
15


Giant Wasp
60
good
300/600/900
14


Griffon
80
average
300/600/900
17


Hippogrif
100
average
300/600/900
15


Chimera
50
poor
348/699/1050
19


Nightmare
90
good
300/600/900
24


Pegasus
120
average
300/600/900
14


Wyvern
60
poor
348/699/1050
18

[BananaNomNom]

Why not make Dragon Effigies? You don't have to capture dragons and the only limitation is how much money it would cost.

[Malroth]

If this is 3.5 1 nightmare and a Mirror mephit to make endless simalcrum of it works pretty well.

for Pathfinder a Permanently animated object created via the craft construct feat is probably your best bet.

[Fizban]

Let’s say you have access to the resources and territories of a far-flung empire, and you’re charged with building an effective aerial division, responsible with providing top cover for ground formations as well as carrying out aerial patrols, airborne surveys, special messenger duty, etc.

You have the resources to capture, train and breed almost any flying creature you like, with the exception of dragons and closely related creatures. So, what creature would you choose to serve as the backbone of your aerial command? What would be the best flying mount to carry out these functions?
"Unlimited" resources quickly find out just how unlimited they are when one tries to make entire fleets out of the most advanced "weaponry" available.

The only type of creature you can realistically make military use of is an herbivore, or failing that at least an omnivore. Large carnivores simply require vastly more resources to feed and are far more dangerous to train. The only flying herbivore is the Pegasus, and it also happens to be the fastest, and it also happens to be smarter than the average human. So you'd either be down to slavery or forging an actual alliance.

That is, until the Drakkensteed shows up, a dragonblooded animal specifically written to fill this role, it's mostly a horse and the ecology does in fact say they graze, so that's what you'd use en masse despite the 60' poor flight speed. The trample ability makes no sense, but is a massive asset as well. This also brings in the obvious half-dragon herd animal, but it sounds like your game is putting all things dragon out of reach, so possibly both of these are out.

After those hippogriffs have the second highest speed, are somewhat similar to horses, have 2 int, and only 3 hit dice- thus actually making them trainable and having the lowest DC to do so, but they still eat meat so you'd be able to field fewer of them.

Anything else would be used wherever appropriate, most likely when you have high level agents with feats or features allowing them to maintain loyalty and fighting foes that actually require heavier beasts, with the kingdom's backing making a convenient excuse for why they don't have to jump through any hoops.

[Falontani]

"Unlimited" resources quickly find out just how unlimited they are when one tries to make entire fleets out of the most advanced "weaponry" available.

The only type of creature you can realistically make military use of is an herbivore, or failing that at least an omnivore. Large carnivores simply require vastly more resources to feed and are far more dangerous to train. The only flying herbivore is the Pegasus, and it also happens to be the fastest, and it also happens to be smarter than the average human. So you'd either be down to slavery or forging an actual alliance.

Nightmares are outsiders which do not need to eat. They are some of the best flying mounts you can get, and are simply great for scare tactics

[Doctor Awkward]

I am a huge fan of Steelwings out of the Monster Manual 5.

They are an extraplanar magical beast native to the plane of Acheron. They can be advanced up to 28 HD to Gargantuan in size. And they have their own rules and costs for hatching and training them to be mounts. They have an outstanding 120 ft. Fly speed with average maneuverability, and the Hover and Flyby Attack feats. They have Fast Healing 15, 5 natural melee attacks (bite, 2 talons, 2 wings), and the ability to fling 3 of their feathers as a ranged attack each round.

In addition they come with three excellent special abilities:

-They can surround themselves with a shield of razorfeathers that does damage to adjacent opponents (the rider and passengers are not affected) like Blade Barrier. In addition, any attacks made by non-adjacent opponents suffer a 20% miss chance from concealment.

-Their razorfeathers veer towards the intended target, ignoring miss chances due to concealment, and threaten a critical hit on a 17-20.

-They can additionally choose to throw a hail of razorfeathers as a standard action in a 60 ft. cone. Targets inside suffer 1d6 damage per hit die of the steelwing with a Reflex save for half. They can do this every 1d4 rounds.

[Fizban]

Nightmares are outsiders which do not need to eat. They are some of the best flying mounts you can get, and are simply great for scare tactics
And are even more intelligent and strong willed than Pegusai, with a magical ability to escape. The extra expense required to force a Nightmare to serve someone it doesn't want to serve is far more than it would be to enslave a Pegasus, and if your intended riders are already strong enough (and Evil enough) that Nightmares are willing to serve them, those people can just get them.

[Celestia]

Sharks with jetpacks.

[CozJa]

For aerial Patrols and field support I'd go with Warforged Raptors (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20070618a&page=5) they never sleep and can be pretty good against terrestrial troops

[Doctor Awkward]

For aerial Patrols and field support I'd go with Warforged Raptors they never sleep and can be pretty good against terrestrial troops

While they would probably be pretty effective against a battalion of regular humanoid troops, I really question that articles claim of the warforged raptor's ability to function as an aerial siege engine.

Assuming it uses quadruped rules for carrying capacity (it is vaguely described as "large dragonfly", which has six legs), that means it can carry up to 798 lbs. as a light load. Any more than that will incur movement speed penalties, dropping it's flight to 60 ft. per round. Assuming the smallest possible rocks, that's 19 rocks in total.

If you assume the bare minimum for a fortified castle-- regular masonry walls about 5 ft. thick-- that means that each 10 ft. section of the wall would have hardness of 8 and 450 hp. At 2d6+7 damage per throw, they would be averaging 6 points of damage per round against the wall (after hardness). It would take 4 warforged raptors spending 19 uninterrupted rounds throwing all of their boulders to bring down a single section of the wall.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Umm, chronotryn? Mind you, they're less "mount" and more "airborne division", but they're still really effective.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by DEMON
Some options, mostly from SRD:

This is an excellent chart for comparison, thanks. Plenty of good options here.


Originally Posted by BananaNomNom
Why not make Dragon Effigies? You don't have to capture dragons and the only limitation is how much money it would cost.

Hm. What exactly are effigies, and where are they from?

I’m thinking mainly live creatures, but open to considering other options.


Originally Posted by Malroth
…for Pathfinder a Permanently animated object created via the craft construct feat is probably your best bet.

The cost for Permanency would be thousands of gp per object, which in this case would be prohibitive for a large formation. This might have some value for a unique emplacement, but not quite what I’m looking for in a flying cavalry.


Originally Posted by Tonymitsu
I am a huge fan of Steelwings out of the Monster Manual 5.


Originally Posted by ExLibrisMortis
Umm, chronotryn? Mind you, they're less "mount" and more "airborne division", but they're still really effective.

I appreciate the suggestions, but these are a little outside the envelope of what I was thinking.


Originally Posted by CozJa
For aerial Patrols and field support I'd go with Warforged Raptors….

This is somewhat interesting, although I have to agree with Tonymitsu that it may not be all it’s intended to be.

Beyond that, I’m disappointed that the best they could do with this creature was to have it throw rocks at things. Given the visually dynamic design, it really deserves something more imaginative.

.

[Calthropstu]

In Kingdom Hearts she rides a dolphin...

[Palanan]

No one’s mentioned the asperi, from MM2, but they seem close to perfect for this niche. Their base fly speed is very slow, but they can increase that in strong winds, and they have a number of other abilities that would make them excellent mounts, including telepathy and a bonus to dodging arrows.

In fact, they seem designed to serve as flying steeds. So, given the notoriously wonky CRs from MM2, is CR 4 reasonable for the asperi, or would that need to be adjusted one way or the other?

[Malroth]

pathfinder allows creation of animated objects without the permanency spell via construct creation rules. The price of which is only about twice the market cost of some of the weaker flying mounts but they don't need to eat, don't get moody and murder your troops, don't need handlers, and have lots of handy immunities including being able to be crammed into a chest somewhere untill you need them.

[BlackOnyx]

Although "best" might depend on the situation, I'd say the Zombie Dragon Template (see Draconomicon) could make for some solid mounts if kitted out correctly. (Specific choice of base dragon up to the user.)

Tireless, completely obedient, undead immunities and no upkeep required. 25gp/hd to create (with a suitable corpse). Awaken Undead is an option if you'd like them to regain an intelligence score.


Granted, their slow & clumsy maneuverability might be an issue in certain situations/engagements, but, for overall utility, they may be worth consideration.

[Doctor Awkward]

No one’s mentioned the asperi, from MM2, but they seem close to perfect for this niche. Their base fly speed is very slow, but they can increase that in strong winds, and they have a number of other abilities that would make them excellent mounts, including telepathy and a bonus to dodging arrows.

In fact, they seem designed to serve as flying steeds. So, given the notoriously wonky CRs from MM2, is CR 4 reasonable for the asperi, or would that need to be adjusted one way or the other?

Make sure you check the 3.5 MM2 update when using critters from that book:

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a